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By learning Linux, you can start with the basic commands that have been around since the days of Unix. However, the developers created the standard commands a long time ago, and these commands are currently being simplified to make them easier to use. As an advanced or experienced user, it is good to learn and master powerful alternatives to these commands. These alternatives to classic commands will save you time and give you detailed results. These are some of the best alternatives to classic commands in Linux.
Alternatives to some classic Linux commands
Over the years, alternatives have emerged that improve and/or simplify their most veteran references, and many of them have already earned a place in the hearts of Linux users. Let’s look at some of the most prominent:
cat vs bat
Cat’ (short for ‘concatenate’) is a command that allows us to create or merge files, or ‘print’ them to standard output (display them in the terminal or redirect them to another file).
On the other hand, ‘bat’ (which is defined as ‘cat with wings’) complements cat in all its functions, adding other useful ones such as automatic syntax highlighting for a large number of programming and markup languages, integration with Git ( highlighting modifications), automatic pagination or the option to show non-printable characters.
Cd vs Zoxide (Z)
Possibly the most used command when working with the terminal, ‘cd’ (short for “change directory”) does exactly that, allowing us to change directories (folders) to execute the pertinent commands in each one.
But what if ‘cd’ kept track of the directories we use most often and used a sorting algorithm to navigate to the best match, saving us from having to type complex paths over and over again? So the program would be called Zoxide and use ‘z’ as the command.
diff vs diff so fancy
Diff’ (short for “difference”) allows us to visualize the differences between two files or two directories. It is one of the most used commands by developers, often in combination with Git, to find out which lines of code have changed between two versions of the same program.
However, a common criticism of ‘diff’ is that it seems to be more readable by machines than by humans, so to better recognize changes at a glance, they have released ‘diff-so-fancy’, which dispenses with the use of symbols like ‘+’ and ‘-‘, and relies instead on improved text highlighting.
Du vs. Ncdu
‘Du’ (abbreviation for ‘disk usage’) is a command that allows us to show how much disk space directories and files occupy, allowing us to know which ones take up the most space according to the arguments we are passing to the program. So, if we wanted to know the 5 ‘heaviest’ directories and display them in human readable units (MB, GB, etc.) we would write something like the following:
- du-hs * | sort -nr | head
However, ‘ncdu’ is an alternative that not only directly shows us the same information as the previous complex command, but also accompanies it with bar graphs… and allows us to navigate between directories to know, in turn, the ‘weight’ of each of the folders they contain. Or remove them:
Find vs Fd
Find’ means, literally, “to find” in English; and that is precisely its task, to search for files on the hard drive following the criteria that we provide (the name of the file or part of it, the name of the user, the size of the file, etc).
Fd’ does not include as many options and modifiers as ‘find’, but it is a simpler alternative in most cases. So, for example, to find any MP3 files in the current directory, you would previously type
- find . -name “*.mp3”
- …now a simple ‘fd .mp3’ would suffice.
Ls (and tree) vs Exa
‘Ls’ is probably close to ‘cd’ in terms of frequency of use by Linux users. Its function is quite simple: list the files and folders within a directory, the equivalent of opening it in the file explorer. Tree’ would be the equivalent of the browser’s navigation pane, displaying all subdirectories in a tree format.
Well, ‘Exa’ offers the same functions as both, but it makes use of a color output that allows us to differentiate file folders at a glance, as well as identify permissions and owner users, and shows extra information if we view Git repositories, in addition to handle dates in standard format (and not in Anglo-Saxon).
- To override the ‘tree’ functions, simply use
- $ exa –tree
Final words: Alternatives to Some Classic Linux Commands
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